When you’ve just gone into a ditch on the San Diego County freeway, Thomas Weller is the stranger that you’ll wish for. He cruises the freeway looking for people who need help and he doesn’t get paid for it.

NPR featured him on StoryCorps recently and his story was so inspiring that it moved me to tears. Weller knows how important a stranger can be in a person’s life.

His dedication to others began with his own childhood story. His mother told him not to drive his car during a blizzard but he did it anyway and ended up in a snow bank. If it hadn’t been for a kind stranger that stopped to help him, he would probably have frozen to death. That was back in 1964. He’s been called an “angel” countless times by many of the people he’s reached out to. He doesn’t consider himself one, but I do.

Thank goodness for elevators. While on them, time is suspended. The goal is to get to your destination by going up or down floors, but along the way there can be some pleasant surprises. Elevators can be great places to meet people because you’re in close quarters and there’s no time to waste. If you see someone on an elevator that you wish to talk to, you need to do it fast.

This is quite good practice for meeting people and learning the art of making conversation – like my daughter and I did last week at Longworth Hall, an office building in Cincinnati, Ohio. I stepped off the elevator on the wrong floor and saw a young man with a kind, freckled face.

“Oops, I think we got off on the wrong floor.” I said.

“Where are you going?” he said, as he stepped on the elevator with us.

“Oh, my daughter was here to have some pictures taken.”

I had this feeling that my daughter and I were meant to meet him, but I had no idea why.

“There are so many interesting companies in this building. Where do you work?”

He told us the name of the company and said that he composes music for animation films.

“Wow,” I said. “My daughter’s a singer songwriter. She writes her own music.”

He smiled at her. “I majored in songwriting in college,” he said.

“You two need to talk to each other,” I said. “You have a lot in common.”

At that moment the elevator door opened and we all stepped off.

The young man introduced himself as Michael. We stood in the lobby and talked and talked about music. We asked him how he got into composing and he said it was his parents who had him learn many instruments when he was growing up. He gave my daughter helpful advice on which music courses to take in college.

After twenty minutes of chatting, we had to go. But first, Michael and my daughter exchanged phone numbers to keep in touch.

At that moment, I was very grateful for elevators because they connect people to one another faster than you can fill a glass of water. If we had passed Michael in the hallway of Longworth Hall, we would not have met.

Sometimes you see strangers do strange things. You look at them bewildered and you try to make sense of their actions from their perspective, even though you don’t know their perspective at all.

Today in Walmart, I saw a mother walk into the store entrance with her adorable one-year-old blond, cherubic son and pick out a cart that had a used, balled-up tissue in it. There were many other carts to pick from that were tissue-free so I was sure that she was going to change her mind and choose another cart—but I was wrong. She didn’t appear to be in a rush. I almost got her another cart but they were off to do their grocery shopping before I could act on it.

She put her baby in the upper seat of the cart and smiled at him. He did not look unkempt, but I instantly felt sorry for him. Doesn’t his mother want to protect him from illnesses? Doesn’t she want to protect herself? I watched her push her cart towards the produce section and I was so “grossed out” that I felt relieved that I did not plan on buying groceries.

I wondered what she would do with the tissue once the cart filled up. I hoped her baby would grow up and choose a clean cart.

Something just wasn’t right but I still wished the little boy well and her too. I know it’s none of my business, but it disturbed me nonetheless.